Hollie-Blue Allum
Hollie-Blue Allum
July 13, 2015

Over the coming months we’ll be posting about each of the metrics that we report on within the Nudge dashboard. The purpose of these posts is to showcase not just what the metric is but why it’s important at a reporting and campaign level for your clients. 

If you have any follow up questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch: [email protected]

To kick off this series we’ll be starting with Attention Minutes

 

Attention Minutes

Attention minutes tracks time that a person is actively consuming the content.

 

Why?

Attention Minutes are an essential metric for native content. You need to look at your content at a deeper level than just engagement to understand how it performed across all layers. For example a millennial targeted sponsored quiz for a Fashion brand may drive high engagement (i.e shares), whilst a 50+ article looking at the benefits of taking vitamins may not be as engaging but could drive high attention minutes. Does it mean that one underperformed? No. 

Attention Minutes help to give a balanced measure. Marketers need an objective way to compare the return on investment of different kinds of mediums, measuring active attention time is one way of doing that.

At the beginning of a campaign it’s essential to understand the publisher, audience and which metrics which will showcase the success or failure of a campaign. Lets take a deeper look at this using a Netflix campaign as an example: 

Netflix bought two pieces of content, one to launch Orange is the New Black and the other to talk about changing content consumption. Both delivered similar earned impressions, the New York Times had more attention minutes but Wired had more shares.

What does this mean?

That both pieces of content played to their platforms strengths and community. Also it shows why you need the full picture (and right metrics) to understand what works. The Wired article was more thought leadership focused so its objectives are different to Orange is the New Black.

Why do you need to understand the audience before deciding on success metrics? Because you’re buying the audience as much as the content. Metrics such as Attention Minutes help you to understand how the campaign performed. 

 

In Review

Comparative metrics are needed.  Relying on multiple measures with varying setups and definitions is hard to draw insight from. 

The Attention Minutes metric gives you an objective way to compare the return on investment of different kinds of mediums.

For further reading, check out Why Content Marketers should Pay Attention to Attention Minutes.


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